Acer: HDD shortage to intensify in December

Acer VP Scott Lin told DigiTimes that PC vendors will see more serious HDD supply issues in December as HDD inventory levels will soon hit bottom:

As PC brand vendors' hard disc drive (HDD) inventory level will soon hit bottom, vendors will start experiencing HDD shortages in December and the problem will reach its peak in February until recovery comes in March, according to Acer vice president Scott Lin.

Despite PC brand vendors having already taken measures to secure and expand supply sources right after Thailand's flood, sources from the upstream supply chain still estimate that the hard drive supply gap will reach 35% in the fourth quarter with PC vendors starting feeling the pressure in December.

Acer pointed out that all the newly-made notebook models will have price increases of 2-3%, in addition to the extra cost of HDD, the increased price will also cover the extra cost for adopting Intel's new CPUs such as Core i3 2330, 2430 and Core i5 2450.